thoughtWARE

You are invited to read excerpts from the upcoming book, thoughtWARE by Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht, Program Designer for Sarasota Medical & Sports Hypnosis & Joseph Bohorquez, M.D. The book is a composite of powerful Interactive Self-Hypnosis Imagery & Imaginology designed for Optimum Health & Performance

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Planting on the Goal-den Path

Life is often overwhelming, especially for those who live a disorderly life. The reason for this is not life events, but the way we react to them. It is within everyone's grasp to learn healthy ways to respond, instead of reacting on auto-pilot. The life experiences that follow can & will be very different indeed... Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht

Every day I meet individuals who want to achieve something special. They usually arrive in my office or mail box with a load of clutter & disorganization. Most of them don't even know what they're carrying, much less how to choose what to dispose of or what needs changing. All they know is how they feel..... worthless, depressed & despondent. These are the "window-shoppers" of life. They long for what they don't have, but for some reason they don't go into the store to find out the price. Why is this?

Follow along as I help some of my favorite people. You might wonder why they are favorite. It's quite simple. They have stepped forward. They are willing to look & change.

LIFE CONTAINMENT

We talked about containments earlier on. Now we need an over-arching umbrella image that will encompass all areas of your life. This is called a major containment. Images help us to focus, giving the subconscious mind a place to put things that we deliver, as well as those things that are located by the inner mind that are deemed appropriate for this particular image or inner suggestion.

I like to utilize an image of a goal-den path, with separate gardens for each major life area. I’ve presented an image below that represents my inner over-arching image. I teach this image to my patients & students. You will also find it on the mp3 provided for this work, as well as on other programs. The more it is etched, the more valuable it becomes & it works very well indeed.

Once this major containment is in place, the next step is to fill in the details “as if” you already had all of these present in your life. This is called future-pacing and is a major subconscious mind program. The more specific you can be, the better your outcomes will be for the mind will have more to work with. Remember, this is a work in progress. You will continually be adding to it.

Here is a drawing of my goal-den path. You can see the positioning of the separate goal gardens. Notice how the major garden sits on it’s own. This is not just important when managing addictions. It is crucial for high level health and optimum performance in any area of life.

The bricks are twenty-four carat gold, sparkling their value. Beautiful gardens emerge on each side of the path, each having a signpost. The gardens extend back to the horizon, filled with flowers of every conceivable variety and color. The plants are healthy, the colors vibrant. These plants represent my achievements, my resilience, as well as my new desired goals.

I image my feet standing on the path, sensing them tingle from the sparkling gold. I look up at the sky, noticing a few clouds moving slowly, feeling the heat of the sun touching my face gently, coupled with the coolness of a slight breeze. I enjoy allowing my body to fill with feelings of happiness, expectation of good things to come, including the total management of any specific addictions or disorderly behaviors I may have in my life.

I then sit quietly, allowing all of this to settle inside of me. Each time I repeat this in the theater of my mind, my subconscious mind programs the changes. It doesn’t matter what my current reality is. The mind will prefer the newly designed images and will work to bring those into my life. That’s why positive details are so very important, even if they sound ridiculous.

Remember, mind imagery or sensing is different from actual experiences, but your subconscious mind will follow what you present “as being true.” Be as detailed as you can, knowing that each time you do, these very programs will be etched further into your subconscious mind. Do not worry if you feel awkward or feel like nothing is happening. Be patient with the process and you will receive the benefits.

I like to use my journal for this purpose. Writing the details down, further etch them into the subconscious mind.

MIND CONTAINMENTS

It’s time to design the separate gardens. Place an image at the top of your journal page & follow with your detailed explanation. No need to be an artist. When I began inner organizing my life in this way I simply drew an empty rectangle to cue in my subconscious mind. If you like to think in action video, design a movie.

The master garden is called the Mind & Body Health Garden. This garden houses all of the body part “plants”. Without good care in this garden, the other life-area gardens will have difficulty flourishing.

You can read the names of the plants on the little signs. To the side of the garden is a table with a big watering can. This holds your "solution." The ingredients are listed on a piece of paper next to the watering can. Read them. They include high level nutrition, self-disciplined eating, body communication, emotional management & goal setting. Go ahead and water some of your plants.

Now turn and look at the gardens to your left. Each time you care for your Master Garden, the plants and flowers in all other gardens flourish as well, and so whenever you come to the goal-den path you will always stop by and water your Master Garden.

You have just completed a subconscious mind program for caring for your body at high levels & managing disorderly eating. The subconscious mind is very effective & efficient, developing goal action plans from simple active imagery. At any time during the day, deepen slightly with your dial, tilt your eyes up, sensing yourself applying solution to the Master Garden. The more you etch, the deeper the program, the higher your rate of success.

The gardens on the opposite side of the path represent other areas of your life. One of the most important areas is that of your relationship with yourself. We'll meet up in that garden a bit later in this workshop/blog.

It’s a good idea to build a mind containment for each problematic area, especially the bigger ones. This technique is simple & easy to follow. Relax deeply, placing a movie of your daily life up on the mind screen. Play it in slow motion, noticing the areas that are more difficult for you to manage. Notice if you have fear around these. There may be a desire to procrastinate or difficulty focusing. These are simply blocks that need to be dismantled. Be sure to focus on your sugar addiction or disorderly eating. I suggest that you write down your difficult areas. This is another way to begin dismantling blocks.

Now return to the emotion list, locating the problematic emotions that attach themselves to these activities. They may be the same in each area or they may be different. Some people report resentment in restaurant images or fear in the supermarket. Middle of the night eating is often colored in secretive & inner satisfaction colors. Once again, being aware of the problem emotions places you in a position to manage them.

All self- management is accomplished through the position of writer/producer/director. You already know how to do this, as well as how to edit a small production on the mind screen. If you choose, you can practice an emotional switching exercise here. Decide which emotion would benefit you in this moment. Relax deeply, contact the desired emotion, bringing it forward into your moment.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

When there is a tendency towards addiction or disorderly eating, it's common to experience some level of compulsion. This is part of every addictive cycle & tools are needed to awake us to the presence of compulsive emotions, as well as those that pre-empt compulsive activities. Like any other emotion, they have crayons with all the usual levels of coloring available to them.

Just about any emotion can trigger emotional or compulsive eating. In some people it is more about boredom, while in others it is more about rage. Positive state emotions are also known to be responsible & sometimes there are an entire array that play out in different areas of life.

MIND EXERCISE

As you practice interactive awareness, you will begin to notice your emotions that connect themselves to emotional or compulsive eating. While you may have known about them before, seeing them from the position of writer/producer/director is very different indeed.

You have removed your self-judge. You are now open to learning much more about them. The more you to know your emotions, the easier it will be to change their behaviors. In this part of our work it is enough to see or sense them. They are always in more places than you aware of, so lets go ahead and place a subconscious mind request to be shown even more of them. You may wonder why you would want to do this, but remember that you can only change what you can see.

You have some ritual files in your subconscious mind for emotional & compulsive eating. Perhaps some of them have been playing out for years. Holidays bring up lots of these.

Relax deeply & pull out a holiday file. In the file you will find audio & video beliefs about this particular holiday. Play them & observe carefully. Now think seriously about making an addition to the holiday file, one about cutting back on sugar, alcohol, smoking, or food in general. Listen to the mind chatter. These are the emotions attempting to protect the ritual as it is.

The emotions have little to no interest in your managing your addiction or disorderly eating & so they present arguments that range from making sense, to making no sense. They will crayon these arguments as long as you continue to try to put the new addition into the holiday file. But, you have new tools now & you have choices.

These emotions come out in other times as well. Sometimes it’s in the supermarket, arguing about what you should or shouldn’t buy. Keep an eye out for compulsive activities, as well as the thoughts that pre-empt or trigger. Other times it’s at a buffet, or in a restaurant while looking at the menu, or when you are in front of the refrigerator. Some are involved in secret eating. If you have any of those, go ahead & observe them from the position of writer/producer/director. Take your time to observe the details. Listen and look just as if your life depended on it, because it just might. If shame or guilt try to block, simply notice, directing them to step aside as you go forward.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Emotions are usually on automatic pilot, but they can be purposefully chosen. Those on automatic pilot, may begin coloring before you know it, but as you become more skilled in the practice of interactive awareness, you will be able to release early, make corrections, including changing some of the automatic pilot programs.

You can actually edit-in new automatic responses from healthier emotions. I suggest you take time in observing both the shirts & crayons of your most frequent emotions. The better the identification, the quicker & easier it is to identify them in the moment, as well as to work with them, including bringing them to health & balance.

MEET LAUREN

I’ve been addicted to food & especially sugar for decades. Both of my parents are alcoholics & my grandparents both died from diabetes & heart disease. My mood swings have improved, but for the most part I’m not very joyful. I’ve actually lost friends because of this! Now I have the food in order. How do I get the joy back without feeling like I’m making it up?

It’s helps to use imagery to explain a concept such as this. I see Lauren as being hard on her emotional visitors. She’s done a wonderful job of recovery & needs to celebrate in every moment that she works with new changes, as well as those already achieved. The emotional self is child-like & not about to display joyfulness if it is not rewarded. The joy will come from within, as the inner child is celebrated for a job well done.

Many children of alcoholics look outward for approval. Now you are working with inward self-approval that will shine outward. You might look for new ways to enjoy your life, noticing that others will see you as genuine, because that is who you are.

Also consider locating your other positive state emotions, especially the lower-level ones that haven’t been around for awhile. These are inner assets playing “hide and go seek”. As you begin to work with interactive self-hypnosis you will want to call them forward to help with the management of your addiction &disorderly eating, as well as in many other areas of your goal work.

Remember the “moment fragments” you have been working to identify? Remember that you can only change what you can see?

Well now, let’s pull these ideas together. You may come to realize that once you catch your moment, check the emotional states and their crayons, you will soon be able to enter a state of interactive self-hypnosis “right in the fragment”, changing both the emotions and their crayons!

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

You have many emotional visitors that are specific only to you. We all have negative, as well as positive ones. We all have “parts of ourselves” that we prefer to hide. Emotions that stay in the dark are headed for trouble in the future. It is important to become self-aware, to disassociate from the child-emotion, as well as to provide re-education to this part of your self.

There is no room for guilt or shame. Some of these emotions were given to you when you were very young, others being composites that developed to aid you in some way during your life journey to this point in time. Learning to know the shades of your self in this way is very powerful. They are key to high level health & performance in all areas of life.

Here you are learning to disassemble emotional mind states. It is much easier to manage emotions through the practice of interactive awareness & self-hypnosis. Observe the crayons as well as naming or isolating the emotion. The crayoning represents your mindset. These can be imaged as hats that you agree to place on your head. You know that you do have the freedom to remove any hat that doesn’t benefit you. If in real life you noticed you were wearing an inappropriate hat, or one that was too tight, too big or even un-becoming, I'm sure that you would not hesitate to take it off. You can do the same with any emotional mindset-hat. I'll show you how in the next part of this blog workshop...

thoughtWARE

You are invited to read excerpts from the upcoming book, thoughtWARE by Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht, Program Designer for Sarasota Medical & Sports Hypnosis & Joseph Bohorquez, M.D. The book is a composite of powerful Interactive Self-Hypnosis Imagery & Imaginology designed for Optimum Health & Performance